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French 494 Littérature et Témoignage Jean-Pierre Karegeye In past centuries, Christian literature presented the witness/martyr as a victim willing to accept suffering and death in spite of renouncing his/her faith. In 1929, Jean Norton Cru, in his analyses and critiques of accounts of World War I, invented the “conditions of possibility” of a literature of testimony in the French language. More recently, French and Francophone literature of the 20th and 21st centuries increasingly employs the notion of witnessing to characterize narratives by a first person narrative “I” that recounts, through memory, what was seen, heard, felt or suffered as a victim. However, in testimonial literature this narrator often changes position, shifting from that of the survivor who has seen, heard, felt, or touched that of which s/he speaks to a position that appears external to the events, or to one that represents “le tiers,” or to that of an “us” understood as a collective voice. The concept of "witnessing" in fictional texts seems to emerge from a double framework built around both the writer's role and the narrator's voice. Who, then, is the true "witness" in a fictional narrative, the writer or the narrator? Moreover, in light of multiple narrative voices, is it viable to talk of testimonial narrative as a unique and new literary genre that is distinct from both autobiography and the “literature of commitment” in Sartre’s sense? This course will address these questions in exploring relationships between Testimony and Literature from two axes: (i) Various meanings of testimony/witness through some key historical moments and (ii) Aesthetic aspects employed in Testimony, especially through the role of the narrator. Readings will include selections of four books, some chapters in books, and some articles from French and Francophone texts by d’Aubigné, Les Tragiques ; Rotrou, Véritable Saint Genest; Jean Norton Cru, Les Témoins; Agamben, Ce qui reste d’Auschwitz; Primo Levi, Si c’était un homme; Jean-Paul Sartre, Qu’est-ce que la littérature? Jacques Derrida, Poétique et politique du témoignage; Philippe Lejeune, Le Je est un autre,« Yolande Mukagasana, La mort ne veut pas de moi; and Koulsy Lamko, La phalène des collines as well as articles from Senghor and Césaire. We will accompany our readings with films and Guest Speakers. Prerequisite: French 306 or permission of
the instructor.
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